You won’t believe who’s running for Governor in Utah on the Libertarian ticket. Check it out here.
And just to show you that it’s not a gimmick, check it here.
I was shocked, yet not surprised.
In The Republic, Plato came up with the ideal government. Obviously, it won’t happen, but one main feature is his critique of democracy. Some of them aren’t too impressive, but one that has always caught me is that there are no experts in a democracy. When you want to get healthy, you go to a doctor. When you have a toothache, you go to a dentist. They are experts in their fields. In a democracy however, there are no experts. Plato compares a democracy like people in charge of a ship. You don’t want people driving the ship, you want a captain. Indeed, Winston Churchill once remarked that democracy is the greatest form of government, until you have a five-minute conversation with the average voter. All of this suggests critiques of democracy. While I understand the critiques, I don’t think democracy will be replaced anytime soon. But the thing that Plato emphasizes on is education.
When people vote in a democracy, they aren’t that smart. It’s because the people don’t care about the substantial issues, they love the images. Debates in democracies will become superficial. We’ll focus more on images, less on substantive issues. Why? It’s because the masses are impatient with all the information. They prefer the sensational over the informative. Think in our society: which do people in our society watch more: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or E! Channel, Oprah, Jerry Springer, and VH1? Also, more emphasis is placed on emotion than on reason. A while ago, they were thinking of placing a nuclear power plant in California. Well, one side was saying we’ll waste all our resources until we’re scavenging for life, the other side said everyone will become mutant freaks and nuclear accidents. They were trying to scare each other. But here’s the thing: whoever can scare the most wins. Plato’s solution thus, was to start over. I think we need a start over in a sense, but not a full-blown start over. I think Plato’s right that the average voter isn’t that educated. Thus, we need to go straight to the source and look at the education system. This will help us become aware of our country, ourselves, and our situations.
What would the ideal school system be for you? What would you add? What would you take away?
Check out the election in 2004:
Obviously, Bush won that election. Now during that election, the main issue that got people interested was the War. The War on Terror and the War in Iraq had an interest of the public and 43% of the people said that their main concern was that issue. But I wonder if the candidates seriously knew of the impact it had. They both referred to 9/11 but I think that the people who knew mostly about it were the people themselves: those in New York and Wash. D.C. After all, they were the ones that were mostly affected, and so it seems to make sense to ask them how they were affected because they were the ones that seriously got hurt.
I was shocked that no one mentioned this during the debates, but more surprised that no one mentioned this until after the election. Yes, I realize that this election is over and we have another one coming up, but this may be important to this election and future elections. Doesn’t the area where it was mostly affected have any significance to the policies? Notice that in NY, DC, and PA all voted Democrat that year, and they were the places that got attacked. If we want to know how to prevent attacks and make sure that we’re safe, what better place to go to then to those three places. The argument stands like this:
So based on this, it seems that these experts wanted Kerry in office and not Bush. After all, Bush and Kerry only witnessed these attacks.
Now we can apply this to this election. I think most people are still concerned about the War and economics. With the war, NY, DC, and PA all want Obama. With economics, it’s hard to tell which part of the nation got really hurt the most. After all, many people everywhere are losing their jobs. But the main concentration is probably in the DC area along with NY, so again this goes to Obama. Another big issue is energy and health care. I won’t pretend to know where in the nation this is fully concentrated on.
I guess my question is should we give more consideration to places where they got hit the hardest? Suppose the minimum wage was $6.00 but all of the states except for Utah had a minimum wage of $7. Does it make sense to go to CA and ask them if the wage should be raised to $7 if their minimum wage is already $7? I think these issues shouldn’t be a blanketed feature across the nation, but rather more specific to each locale.
If there going to be comments, please no political rhetoric, bashing, or fallacies; otherwise I will delete or edit the comments.
Here’s a new site that I’ll post on the side as well. It’s fivethirtyeight.com. The site was founded by a baseball statistician. With statistics, one tries to find the probabilities and possibilities of future events. Baseball is loaded with statistics and they are (usually) reliable. Well, what if we applied the same concepts, formulas, and ideas to this election? Check it out.
The stats are updated frequently and statistics are just facts, meaning they are non-biased. Of course, part of this comes from polls, but with statistics, you try to take out the bias by looking at the “house” projection. It’s part of the statistic lingo but it’s an interesting site. By the way, the site predicts Obama winning with a 392 electoral votes. However, this is only an 89% chance of winning and the popular vote says that he’s at 51%.
Do you want to know how to get along in the world by skills? Check it out here.
Here’s a sample:
1. Handle a blowout
2. Drive in snow
3. Check trouble codes
4. Replace fan belt
5. Wax a car
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle
7. Use a stick welder
8. Hitch up a trailer
9. Jump start a car
10. Perform the Heimlich
11. Reverse hypothermia
12. Perform hands-only CPR
13. Escape a sinking car
Gov. Sarah Palin has received a lot of heat for being really extreme on her view of abortion. Just to recap, Palin’s view is that abortion is impermissible except for cases where the mother’s health or life is on the line. This means that for Palin, abortion for rape or incest cases are immoral. This seems hard to swallow, even for Republicans.
I actually find Palin’s view consistent. I’ve never understood the position that someone is pro-life, yet the exception is rape and incest. Why so? Let’s see what Palin says:
“I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. And I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world.”
Ok, I’m assuming she means that it becomes a person at the moment of conception. That’s fine, most pro-lifers agree. So here’s why she’s consistent: if you believe that life (or it becomes a person) begins at conception, then that means taking away that life is still deemed wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s rape or incest (why should it? After all, it’s still a person). A being doesn’t lose the status of being a person because the situation was a bad one. A person is still a person.
Thus, abortion is wrong because it kills a person according to the pro-lifers. But I think that if they’re going to be consistent, they must agree with Palin, meaning that even in cases of rape or incest, it’s still killing a person. Yes, it sucks that the situation has made the woman pregnant, but again, if you are defining life (or a person) at the beginning of conception, then you must take that definition and make it consistent with everything else. And this means that abortion for rape and incest is still killing a person.
I have noticed an interesting, yet inconsistent attitude toward the soldiers by comparing the attitudes of today with the attitudes during the Vietnam era.
Now both the Vietnam War and the current War in Iraq are unpopular wars. But let’s look at how the soldiers were portrayed.
In Vietnam, the soldiers were treated horribly. When they came home, they were considered traitors to the country and that they did something dishonorable. People spat at them when they came home and you were treated as if you were unpatriotic and un-American.
In Iraq, it’s a different story. Even if you disagree with the war, people always treat the soldiers with respect and usually thanking them for serving our country. They are seen with respect, diligence, honor, and courage. Vietnam soldiers, on the other hand, are the antithesis of Iraq soldiers.
Now here’s where it gets interesting: the Vietnam soldiers had no choice in the matter. They had to fight based on conscription. So if they had no choice, then why were they treated with such disrespect?
At the same time, the Iraq soldiers went in voluntarily so they had a choice. Yet they get the honors, support, and gratitude. But the Vietnam War is as unpopular as the Iraq war. So why is there a discongruency?
Here’s my guess. I’m not a scholar in history but my guess is that since the Vietnam war was a drafted war, the protesters knew this and so they saw anything governmental with contempt. The soldiers were part of the governmental program (even though the soldiers themselves had no say). Thus, the protesters saw the soldiers with contempt. Whereas the Iraq soldiers aren’t really “seen” as part of the governmental program (because they had a choice), thus they get the respect whereas the government itself gets the contempt. The more I think about it, it seems like a stretch. After all, the Iraq soldiers choose to get involved and so based on my theory, the Iraq soldiers should get even more contempt than the government itself. So why the discongruency?
I enjoy Steven Colbert at The Colbert Report, and he said some interesting things to say about the 24-hour news programs when he was interviewed in Entertainment Weekly:
There’s not more news now than there was when we were kids. There’s the same amount from when it was just Cronkite. And the easiest way to fill it is to have someone’s opinion on it. Then you have an opposite opinion, and then you have a mishmash of fact and opinion, and you leave it the least informed you can possibly be.
That’s exactly how I see these 24-hour news networks which is why I can’t stand watching them. I mainly get my news from little blurbs online like Google or the BBC. News, nowadays, has lost the function or respectibility of being news. It’s mainly opinions, breaking news, or stories that isn’t worth to be called news (remember when Anna Nicole Smith died and everyone had to talk about it for a week. That’s not news!). To get another glimpse at what I’m saying, check this out. This is what’s happening to news and what’s sad is that people are believing that it is news.
People now think of news as opinions from commentators and take that as a source of information, or the facts of the case. But that’s not news, it’s opinion. Example: on FoxNews, their motto is “We Report, You Decide.” How convenient! Not only do I hear the news, but I get to decide if what I heard is true or not. But how can I tell if it’s true or not? Well, I have to investigate and the only way to do that is go to. . . the news. We’re at a loop here and it’s no wonder that post-modernism is looking at this and taking it into validating consideration. When I hear the news, I don’t want to decide if it’s true or not. The point of the news is that it’s supposed to be true. News gives us the facts: tell us what Congress is saying about the bailout (I don’t want to hear what the host thinks is a good idea). Tell us about the debates (not that the same “I hate McCain/Obama rhetoric”). Tell us what’s happening in the nation, give us the facts that’s newsworthy (not some lame scoop like some guy invented a way to mow the lawn 30 seconds faster). Give me the news, facts, the truth!
A recent study came out which you can see here. It turns out the the offspring gets more of the mother’s genes than the father’s, a ratio of about 2:1. Why so? It’s because our ancestors long ago were not monogamous, at least the males weren’t. Because the father’s didn’t have a concern to father children, it was to the advantage of later generations to instill monogamy. Here’s a quote from the article:
Researchers report genetic evidence bolstering the socially contentious idea that polygyny—the mating practice where some males dominate reproduction by fathering children with several women—was the norm for sexual behavior throughout human history and prehistory. Because polygyny means other men father few or no children, the study, published today in PLoS Genetics, also shows that, on average, women bequeath more genes to their offspring than men do.
Interesting stuff.
With the first debates over, I’m letting this post be open to discuss anything about the upcoming 2008 election. You can discuss economics, foreign policy, health care, whatever.
If you want, you can even discuss upcoming local and state issues as well. The only thing I ask is no bashing!
UPDATE: I’m keeping this on the front page until the election is over. This post is getting a lot of views so I thought it would be easier to keep it on the first page.
Shaun Miller's Ideas 